Bought apple stock in 1980? Held it? Don't gloat

New York

THIRTY-SEVEN years ago on Tuesday, Apple Inc went public, raising a little over US$100 million by selling its stock for US$22 a share (40 US cents on a split-adjusted basis). The sale was as eagerly anticipated as any initial public offering (IPO), including those of other technology innovators such as Netscape, Google or Facebook. Some 40 Apple employees became instant millionaires, starting with Steve Jobs, who was suddenly worth US$217 million.

Apple has since gone on to do many amazing things, and for at least the last decade it has also been an amazing stock, with a market capitalisation that last month topped US$900 billion, an astounding figure. So it is not a big surprise that when I did a Google search of "Apple" and "IPO", the first handful of links calculated how rich you would be if you had bought the stock at the IPO price.